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Mayors In Baltimore Pass Resolution On War Money

BALTIMORE (AP) — Mayors from across the United States passed a resolution Monday urging Congress to quickly end wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and spend the money on domestic priorities.

The resolution, passed during the last day of annual conference of mayors, says the $126 billion spent each year on the wars should be used at home to create jobs, rebuild infrastructure, develop sustainable energy and provide for other needs.

Organizers said the last time the mayors passed a resolution calling for the end to a military engagement was during the Vietnam War.

Mayors attending the conference also called on Congress to do more to stimulate the economy, releasing a study of the economy of metro areas nationwide.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, the incoming president of the mayors conference, noted bipartisan support for the resolution and didn’t limit criticism of Congress to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“When the Democrats are saying that they won’t cut entitlement programs that clearly are not sustainable going into the future, and I’m talking about Social Security and Medicare, and Republicans are saying they won’t cut defense spending, let me explain what is left,” Villaraigosa said. “Everything important to our cities. That’s investment in education, that’s investment in public health. That’s investment in transportation.”

The Los Angeles mayor said the mayors understand cutting bad programs, but they don’t understand not investing in American workers and cities.

Villaraigosa noted the report said metro economies account for 89 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product and 94 percent of new jobs.

The study of 363 metropolitan areas found unemployment was expected remain at double-digit levels in 75 of those areas through December. And 48 are not expected to return to peak employment until after 2020.

However, the report also found growth in the nation’s gross domestic product was expected to reach 3.5 percent in the second half of 2011 and that by 2014 over half of metro areas will have returned to their previous peak employment levels.

The forecasts were based on the assumption that Congress will extend the debt ceiling.

It’s mind-boggling that Villaraigosa promotes Los Angeles as a sanctuary city for illegal aliens when Los Angeles is financially broke! Instead of demanding that the taxpayers bail out their cities, they need to get realistic about their cities’ budgets.

Did you even read the article? If you did you clearly did not understand, so let me break it down white trash. These mayors are not looking to take over the world or even the country. They simply are representing the citizens in their respective cities to give a big, clear message to Congress that the billions of dollars being used to fund the wars overseas could be much more beneficial to all americans if they reallocated much of that money to domestic programs, i.e. for the budgets in my city and your city. What’s so ludicrous about wanting taxpayer money to circulate within our own economy rather than burn in a foreign land?

The inner city poor should get exactly what they put into the system, and that is nothing. These people think we owe them something and the truth is we owe them nothing. If they would put have the energy into making themselves successful as they do trying to be some kind of “gangsta” or a “want to be thug”, they would rival Bill Gates as far as personal success. Instead, they sit around and have kids which they won’t raise, blame “the man” for their lack of personal respect and laziness, and expect the taxpayers to support them. Grow up, get a job and make something for yourselve, just like the rest of us had to.

Sure let’s spend more on people who would rather do drugs, abuse their children or are just to darn lazy to work rather than keep our country safe!!!! There are jobs out there maybe they should take the first step and ACTUALLY APPLY FOR ONE!!!!!! Let’s spend some money on getting Welfare receipients drug tested. I bet not only would it pay for itself we would see a very large number of people who would get cut off! There are so many things that could be done to save money, let’s start with cleaning out the trash.

you are so ignorant, and if you have a job you better hope you keep it, but if you find yourself actually having to collect unemployment and look for a new job you’ll see just how short-sighted your image of the unemployed american is. Yes, our welfare system is in need of reform. Yes, our politicians are more worried about their own personal agendas than actually balancing a budget that benefits their constituents, but don’t blame all our problems on the unemployed. There are NOT jobs out there, that’s the problem. Let’s focus on how we can bring them back so that less money is being shoved right into the fewer than 10% of corporate execs that hold the majority of wealth in this country.

There ARE jobs out there for people who want to work, problem is everybody wants to get paid, but no one want s to work. There are plenty of ways for people to re-educate themselves and find new skills that will allow them to get better paying jobs, but it requires work and being responsible. “Hard work” and “responsability” are just two things that the inner city doesn’t know about or even teach themselves or their kids. This is why the are poor. They think they are owed something. You get out of life what you put into it, hense they have nothing!